State captors turn on each other as Ben Martins tries to save his skin

The "he said, she said" formula is showing up Gupta associates for who they truly are

South Africa's Minister for Transport Ben Martins sits on September 18, 2012 at the Val Duchesse Castle in Brussels during the annual EU-South Africa summit.

You have to admit, the Parliament’s portfolio committee are doing an astounding job of making alleged state capture players squirm on the stand. Today, it was the turn of Ben Martins – boy, was he put under some pressure…

Who is Ben Martins?

Martins was the Minister for Energy and Transport, over two separate spells in 2012 and 2013. He was in the hot-seat just a day after Lucky Montana – the former PRASA CEO – sang like a canary and implicated Mr Martins in some Gupta-themed scandal.

It shows that the Guptas were once again trying to influence the executive operations of a state-owned entity. According to Montana, the unholy pairing of TG and Zuma Junior were wanting to re-open talks over contracts that had already been awarded. Something that Martins was allegedly aware of.

What happened at the Eskom Inquiry on Wednesday 31 January?

The ex-Transport Minister used his appearance at the Eskom Inquiry today to fight back against these allegations. Martins claims that he has only met Tony Gupta – or any Gupta, for that matter – once before, in the meeting that Montana referred to.

In Martins’ testimony, he claims that he felt somewhat ‘bullied into‘ the aforementioned appointment. He even claimed that the Gupta brother made him feel extremely uncomfortable, and threatened legal action if he could not re-open the tender process, and swing contracts into the billionaires’ favour.

State captors are abandoning ship, and each other

With two very conflicting accounts this week, there is one thing both parties have in common. They are ready to sell the Guptas down the river. No-one is keeping their secrets anymore, and no-one has even a slight interest in defending them.

That’s how business works when it’s as dodgy as state capture. The whole thing is a den of snakes.